Previously, this magazine has devoted
a significant amount of coverage to the
hazards of being fooled into purchasing and,
worse, installing counterfeit communications
cabling. It’s a topic that always bears
some revisiting, because the threat is
apparently ongoing.

A video that the Communications Cable
and Connectivity Association (CCCA) posted
to YouTube earlier this year, and has been
viewed more than 4,000 times as of mid-April, shows what happens when a counterfeit cable gets put to a burn test. In the
video, a cable that passes itself off as being
plenum-rated is subjected to the Steiner
Tunnel test, which a cable must pass in
order to qualify for the plenum rating. To
say the cable fails the test is a significant
understatement.

The CCCA video's narrator reminds us,
"It's in everyone's best interest that if a fire
breaks out in a building, communications
cables don't act like a fuse and carry fire all
over the building."

Headquartered in Miami, FL, with offices
in the UK, Spain and Latin America, Beyondtech is a provider of fiber-optic and copper
network connectivity ecosystems. A recent
blog article found at the company’s website
is entitled “How to know if your Cat 5e, Cat 6
or Cat 6A Ethernet cable is counterfeit?”

Photo credit: Beyondtech Matt Vincent, Senior Editor

MATTV@PENNWELL.COM

“Installing counterfeit cables is a risk that eventually will have an expensive cost and could be considered negligence, fraud and criminal violation
of building code regulations,” observes Beyondtech. “In some cases, the
contractor could even face imprisonment.” The company goes on to succinctly outline three major scams that counterfeit cabling manufacturers
try to foist on unwitting buyers. Quoting the blog directly, these scams
are as follows.

Using steel or aluminum instead of copper:Copper-clad-steel or
copper-clad-aluminum is a classic method manufacturers use to save money.
It consists of using an aluminum or steel core instead of costly copper,
which causes high attenuation and poor signaling. In the long run, network
speed will be affected.

Using re-ground plastic:RJ-45 connectors that don’t pass the quality test at the factory and turn out as rejected can be re-ground back to pellets and added to the plastic used to make new connectors. This process
is legitimate, but it can have bad consequences when too much re-ground
plastic is used, because it lowers combustion rating. If the connector body
has yellowing or foggy plastic, it means that low-quality plastic was used in
its making. Another thing manufacturers have been doing with connectors is
to replace the nickel and gold parts on the metal contact with “gold flash” or
“selective plating”—materials that corrode quickly.

Substituting jacket material:Manufacturers replace CMP and CMR
flammability ratings with inferior non-fireproof jacket material. Not every
application requires these standards, but when they are needed it is critical
for cables to have them.

In summary, Beyondtech advises, “If you want to avoid buying non-legit-imate cables, you have to make sure to: buy cables from a legitimate man-ufacturer; always compare them to good products you have bought before;analyze the jacket’s quality and labeling; carefully observe the box thecables came in; ask where the cable is coming from.”Couldn’t have said it better ourselves. The full blog is available atbeyondtech.us.